


2017

by 7PercentSolution, J_Baillier



Series: On Pins And Needles [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Autism Spectrum, Established Relationship, Family, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Posh boy interrupted, casefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 04:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13092543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7PercentSolution/pseuds/7PercentSolution, https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier
Summary: Sherlock takes on a case that raises unexpected challenges, both professional and personal. Memories of times before John complicate matters.





	2017

**Author's Note:**

> The [main page of the series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/581221) contains information on the full chronology of the fics that belong to it.

 

 

Lestrade is one of the few people whose calls Sherlock is willing to answer, and he has been waiting for this one.

"They found a potential third one, but it’s a lot older," the DI barks into his ear, not starting with a polite greeting since he knows Sherlock well enough not to bother. "Same MO – at least when it comes to the trophies taken and the eyelids. This one hasn’t been dumped on the doorstep of a hospital, but you'll want to judge for yourself if it's part of the series. Will you come?"

The question is rhetoric. There's a serial killer – that's always at least an _eight_ – who cuts off all of their victim’s fingers as trophies, and paints their eyelids black. They then dump the body in one of the big bins behind a hospital. The first victim had been left at St Thomas, the second one that was found had disappeared exactly one year earlier to the day and dumped at Guy’s. The first two victims were young white males, killed with a single injection of a huge overdose of tricyclic antidepressants. Without fingerprints it had been slow work to identify them. Finally, a week ago, a dental record had come up trumps, and they got an ID on the second victim: Jonathan Cairnes.

Only nineteen years of age, he’d been in and out of care since he was a teenager, ending up on the streets after he came of age. The removal of the phalanges had been done before death; they had been exarticulated with medical precision, judging by the findings on the bones during the post mortem. While tricyclics are no longer the most common form of antidepressant, what was found in the victims’ bloodstreams were of a standard brand once prescribed by thousands of doctors, dispensed to tens of thousands of patients back in their heyday and still used in the treatment of – among other things – chronic neuropathic pain.

Sherlock had spent days identifying the dye on the eyelids, which he had eventually pronounced as mascara. To find the actual brand would take further analysis, and be likely to result in frustration: millions of users could be buying it from thousands of outlets. So, no way to move the case forward – until now.

Sherlock tries to keep the excitement out of his voice. "Text me the address."

Lestrade chuckles sarcastically. "You won't get far trying to hail a cab with this rain and the Tube strike going on. I'm outside in an unmarked. Is John there?"

"He is, yes," Sherlock replies in a resigned tone; not because he considers John's presence exasperating but because he abhors having to sit in police cars, unmarked or not. "Just this _once_ ," he warns, and cuts the connection.

  
-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-  
  


  
His irritation at their means of transport is diluted by the fact that there is a thick folder waiting for him on the backseat full of crime scene photographs. At least this will be a more efficient use of the journey time. He takes over the back seat while John rides shotgun.

He takes a moment to appreciate the joys of digital cameras with internet connections.  For once, Technical has done a good job of covering the entire area.

"Buried in a disused garden compost heap," Lestrade volunteers.

John is struggling to buckle up in the front. "That could hasten decomposition."

"That's assuming our culprit is smart enough to consider such a thing instead of just seeing a big pile of easily excavated dirt to shove a body in," Sherlock mutters as he leafs through the photographs. He quickly flips through the prints that show a wider area of the surroundings instead of the precise spot where the body had been found.

The location is a walled vegetable patch – the old brick walls are quite high, and judging by how organised everything looks, it's likely a part of a larger estate with a professional gardener. Near the wall, an old compost heap has been mouldering, at the bottom of which the body of their yet unidentified victim had been found.

In the foreground of one photograph there is a small pond the surroundings of which have been turned into a picturesque nook with a stone bench, planted gladioli and a concrete statue resembling a totem pole.

It all looks… familiar, but for a moment the context eludes Sherlock. He has an eidetic memory that works very well with locations, so he knows he has been here before but can’t quite place it, which is distinctly odd _._ It's as though he has deliberately tried _not_ to memorise this place.

He flips the pile of photographs on the seat next to him over to have a closer look at the ones he had initially ignored, since they didn't show the victim. The third photograph in the set is of a white building with a grey brick foundation. The next one, a close-up of the vegetable garden's back wall, shows a boarded-up door sunk into the red brick next to a part of the wall that has been adorned with symmetrically arranged, cream-coloured tiles.

His heart rate picks up before the memory even properly connects in his head. _Oh._ He has, indeed, been in this place many times. Context has now been supplied, and it makes his stomach contract in horror. For a moment, he has to concentrate seriously on anything other than his instinctive reaction to shove the car door open to get some air and to keep his breakfast from coming up.

It's a carpet pull, a sucker punch of finest order. He remembers every word he'd spoken on one particular occasion of visiting this garden, and every word given in reply. It's not a conversation he's proud of. It wasn't a _year_ he's proud of.

He steals a panicked glance to the front of the car. John and Lestrade are discussing something non-case related. That means that they're utterly oblivious to what is going on, but that state of affairs may not last long. Sherlock realises he may have mere seconds to compose himself.

He shoves the photographs back into the folder, fixes his gaze on the streaky rain patterns on the window and forces himself not move a muscle, no matter how much he needs to fidget to channel away the anxiety. His mind is racing to understand how he should react to this – or, more precisely, how he should _pretend_ to react to this so that it wouldn't raise any alarm bells.

He closes his eyes, squeezes them shut. _It's just a garden_. Just a garden with a salient body dump, which makes it a case thing, a good thing, an interesting thing, a thing he wants, but all that is being drowned out by the shock. He flutters his lids open, and it takes a moment to fix his gaze on the London flying by, distorted by the rain hitting the car windows. After tracing the potential routes in his head, he deduces that they are still at least fifteen minutes away from their destination.

Another realisation hits: getting to the garden will likely entail driving through the front gates. This makes his racing thoughts hit a brick wall. Even if he says nothing, the second the NHS sign on the gates comes into view, John will _know,_ John will _ask_ him if he's alright to do this, if he might be so shaken by the memories of that place that he can't do his bloody job---

Years ago, Sherlock would have done his best to try to keep his rising panic a secret because no one could be trusted with this, ever. Then, John had bulldozed all over his assumptions on how constructive and safe it is to conceal such distress in the first place. John is good at that: challenging Sherlock's views about himself and the world. If John reacts visibly or says something when he realises where they are headed and why that fact is significant, his reaction will drag everything into daylight.

Lestrade can't know. Just can't. That needs to be prevented. The DI doesn't know the details of where he'd spent six months in 2007, only that he'd been away. _Indisposed_. He doesn’t know the meaning of this place to Sherlock, and even the slightest indication that Sherlock's judgment might be compromised would likely mean eviction from the case.

Sherlock realises he needs to volunteer a hint to make John understand where they are headed so he can somehow intervene. Sherlock doesn't even know what he wants – to somehow get through this or to retreat? – but he knows that he urgently needs John to know. He can't say anything up front; John needs to make the connection, and their communication needs to go right over Lestrade's head.

"Where are we going?" Sherlock asks, and there's a slight waver in his voice he hopes no one will pick up on. The traffic noise is sufficiently loud to at least partly conceal it.

"Beckenham," Lestrade says. “The Copperfield House station was called to the site, but when the body was found, they bumped it over to Bromley.”

Depending on who one asks, Bethlem Royal Hospital might be considered to be located in the suburbs of Bromley _or_ Beckenham, although the postal address belongs to the latter. "I am astonished by the geographic vagueness of that statement; I asked about the crime scene, not the police involved," Sherlock snaps and nearly winces at the higher pitch his tone has acquired. _Keep calm, you idiot._

"It's a hospital with a big garden," Lestrade says as they wait at a traffic light. He looks up at the sky and then reaches over the wheel to switch the wipers down a notch as the rain is beginning to ease.

John, in the front seat, hasn't reacted to the news about their destination. Why would he, when Lestrade is being so infuriatingly imprecise?

"I wasn't aware the Beckenham Beacon or BMI The Sloane had kitchen gardens," Sherlock prompts angrily.

"No, it's not one of those; it's Bethlem Royal. You know, _Bedlam_?"

"The current institution is not located on the original site which gained that notoriety," Sherlock comments quickly. Neither John nor Lestrade will be surprised about such trivia coming from him; they're quite used to his vast knowledge of London's architectural and cultural history. He's tempted to launch into a longer, rambling lecture about the place but refrains because he knows the impulse comes from wanting to distract himself.

John should be able to recognise the name of the hospital. If he doesn't, then Sherlock needs to devise a plan B and to berate him for his idiocy later.

Thankfully, John does not disappoint him today. His memory is reassuringly often sufficiently functional for this sort of thing. John turns in the front passenger seat he had commandeered and their eyes meet. He looks surprised and alarmed but battle-ready. The determination in his poise makes Sherlock feel that perhaps he can breathe, after all.

He shakes his head slightly to signal for John to say nothing out loud. The army doctor throws himself back against his seat, and his whole being emanates the sort of heavy, preoccupied energy it does when he's thinking hard and fast.

After stalling for a minute, he requests a comfort stop.

Lestrade pulls over at a Shell petrol station at Gipsy Hill, commenting as he drives past the pumps: “You’re as bad as my kids. Didn’t you think to go before you left?”

“Tea. Too much tea this afternoon. Wouldn’t want to compromise a crime scene or have to use the hospital facilities; current MRSA rates are frightening,” Sherlock mumbles to explain. To his own ears, he sounds terribly rambling and hesitant. Judging by the worried glance John gives him, he's caught on that things are not alright.

Sherlock's agitation propels him out of the car; he follows John straight into the toilets at the back of the area housing a mini-market.

Once there, John doesn't even check if the stalls are empty before speaking – probably because they're not dealing with state secrets – only Sherlock's secrets.

"Are you alright doing this?" John asks bluntly. "If not, I’ll go back to the car right now and tell Greg you've just had a better case offer by text and have taken off in a cab. You don't have to do this. I know what a number that place did on you, you don't---"

" _Serial killer_ , John," Sherlock says pointedly and squares his shoulders, although he'd rather lean on a stall door because he suddenly feels rather boneless and blank. Maybe it's relief that their imminent approach to the hospital has been temporarily suspended. Shouldn't he be as upset as he'd been in the car? Is he so, and just doesn't recognise it?

He bites his lip. This is just a crime scene visit, for God's sakes. They'll drive through the gates, make their way to the parking lot next to the vegetable garden, inspect the site and leave. They could be in and out in thirty minutes. Less, if he manages to be on top of his game.

"It was a decade ago," Sherlock tells a stall door. He knows he's trying to convince himself more than he is John.

The last time he'd entered those gates it had been in an ambulance that had brought him in from the St Charles PICU. Despite being heavily medicated, he remembers the day. There are parts of his life the memories of which he wishes he could regain, but also moments he wishes he could delete forever. He doesn't want to forget his time at The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, because not all the memories from there are bad or terrifying, and he would never want to delete a single moment together with John. Bethlem Royal, however, is a different beast. If he could, he'd take the mental equivalent of a flame thrower and remove every trace of the place from his memory banks.

Or... would he? Would that also erase the lessons learned during that time? That would be unfortunate. Sherlock could certainly have done without that period in his life, but most of the dark things residing in his head which he'd want to lose along with memories of Bethlem Royal had been there before he'd been sectioned. Mycroft has always stated that Sherlock's medical incarceration at the hospital had been the best of bad options. Maybe that's the truth.

As he has just pointed out, many years have passed already, so he shouldn't be this deeply affected. Whatever happened in that garden and in those desolate wards should be water under the bridge by now; the ill effects of his stay there are largely remedied. Yet, while the issues that landed him in this place are under control, some of the repercussions of the conversation he'd had with Mycroft in that very garden will never be erased. Sherlock should be able to live with that, easily, but it grates on his nerves that the conversation had irrevocably changed their relationship. He can't be entirely sure after so many years that the way he'd been cruelly forced to evict Mycroft from his life couldn't have been avoided. Contrary to popular belief, he does not hate his brother these days. Hate would be much too simple a summary, and not entirely accurate. Their lives and ways of thinking were once simply incompatible, and now that has been supplanted by a cautious co-existence – a truce of sorts. But, the peace is still fragile. It seems likely that it will always remain that way.

Yes, he most certainly should be over the rest of his experiences during that time period. Plenty of new things for him to have nightmares about have emerged through the years since, but on occasion Bethlem Royal does still creep into his dreamscape. John knows something about this and understands: it's been years after John went to war and his own nightmares will likely never go away, not completely. Sherlock has not admitted to John how big a role Bethlem still plays on his nocturnal stage; John likely thinks that his nightmares are largely about his time at the National during when he'd had Guillain-Barré.

Sherlock leans his palms on the sink and stares at his reflection in the mirror. He still does that sometimes, but nowadays the effect isn't disconcerting. In fact, it is grounding. His reflection is the Sherlock he wants to be, the one he _knows_ he is, unless something completely trips him up. Something like the realisation of their destination today.

"I don't know how you'll react---" John starts quietly.

"I don’t know, either, John; I don't have a bloody crystal ball!" Sherlock snaps, then instantly regrets it.

He pivots on his heels and stomps off towards the door, but John grabs his sleeve and tugs him back around.

"Sherlock," John starts, with the tone he uses when he's exceptionally serious or Sherlock has destroyed a piece of his personal property. Sometimes both apply. "You're already stressed out, and we're already arguing. This isn't a good idea."

"I know what you're thinking," Sherlock points out, but swallows the rest of the explanation. John must be thinking back to his outpatient appointment at the National years ago. That was different, but _how_ different, Sherlock isn't at all sure.

He has lost the battle against a compulsion to fidget, to channel his nervous energy into stimming by flicking his fingertips with his thumb. He wills himself to stop, but John has already noticed.

" _You_ were the biggest stressor then, and that all happened very soon after the GBS," Sherlock argues back even though John hasn't even said anything.

"Still, this is going back to the source––" John says and crosses his arms. That always makes him appear more soldier-like; tighter, more compact, ready and armoured. "—of why things went the way they did back then."

"What could _you_ possibly know about that?" Sherlock counters venomously, and instantly regrets it. John _does_ know, he knows more than anyone, perhaps not the details of what happened in 2007 but he knows how it all affects him, how it can strip him of his defences if the fear creeps in that something similar may be happening. He needs John to help him, and that won't happen if he antagonises the man. Couldn't John just read him the way he always does, to see beyond his attempts at protecting himself by being prickly and know what he means even when he doesn't know how to turn it into words?

He's torn between two, and John can't make this decision for him. He doesn't want to go to Bethlem Royal only to find out he can't deal with returning there – not even in the role of a consulting detective and a free man. He most certainly doesn't want to embarrass himself in front of the Met. But, a new victim could crack the case today!

_Fight or flight? Which is it to be?_

John has taken his hand and he hadn't even noticed. He lets his cold fingers curl around John's warm thumb. He can read Sherlock even when _Sherlock_ can't read Sherlock.

He searches for answers in the frown lines on John's face, in the firm grip of the surgeon's and marksman's hand around his wrist, but there are none to be found there.

"You don't have to do this," John pleads. "But if you do, remember that you're not alone."

 _'Let's lay some ghosts_ ', John had said to him once, and then taken him back to the neuro-medical ITU at The National to prove to Sherlock that it was just a place, and everything bad associated with it only lived in Sherlock's head. Maybe it's time to test that hypothesis on something _worse_.

The initial shock is now fading, banished by John's steadfast support. A part of Sherlock is beginning to get curious if the same exorcism could be performed at Bethlem. This is as good a time as any. It's not going to get easier, is it? How could it, if he avoids the damned place for the rest of his life? What still makes him hesitant is the niggling doubt that after all this time, John may still be doubting his abilities to cope, even more than he had back at the National due to having seen how badly such things can go. For John, anything pertaining to 2007 is an unknown: he'd been around for the duration of the GBS and the recovery, but regarding Bethlem he only knows what scraps of information Sherlock has been willing to provide. They have not discussed his sectioning beyond the initial conversation right after Sherlock had had a meltdown at the discharge appointment. Back then, he had been blindsided by the appearance of someone who had been only peripherally connected to his sectioning. What will happen if he walks back into the lion's den?

Emboldened by John's presence, he reaches for logic, and it comes: the garden should be… doable; he won't have to enter any of the buildings. Since it's the crime scene, he has interesting things to focus on instead of dwelling on memories. If this is the work of the _Finger Phantom_ , as the imbecilic press has dubbed their serial killer, none of the patients or staff will be likely suspects. The Met can handle those interviews.

He won't have to encounter any ghosts if he so chooses.

"You don't have to do this," John reminds him. "If that means that it'll take the Met a few days longer to catch the guy, then so be it. Lord knows you've caught them so many that no one'll blame you if you sit this one out. You can still look at the photos, and I'm sure Technical is recording some video as well. Or, you could send me in with Skype? Wouldn't be the first time you've done that."

He could, yes, but wouldn't that be admitting defeat? It would also require obfuscating to Lestrade, which Sherlock doesn't like doing because the man has a splendid nose for bullshit. It would raise the question among the forensic team why he had suddenly taken a step back from what he had already gleefully declared a fantastic case. Questions would be raised, and not all the police are idiots.

Perhaps John could help him feign a sudden illness? _Pathetic_.

A sudden determination sets into his jaw. He got through it all, back in 2007. Whatever happens today cannot be worse. They can't touch him now. He's not the same, and, unlike in 2007, he has someone on his side.

John seems to pick up on his resolve and nods, warily, as he lets go of Sherlock's wrist. "If you choose to do this, I'll be right here.”

Sherlock nods. He drinks from the tap, runs a hand through his hair and gives himself a stern glance in the mirror.

Then, they make their way back to the car.

"Where the bloody hell have you two been?" Lestrade demands. He's irate enough to have rolled down his window so that he can gripe at them the minute they emerge from the station.

"I don't think a half-rotten corpse is going to make a run for it if we don't hurry," John snarks.

Sherlock slides into the back seat. Lestrade glances at him in the rear-view mirror as he pulls out of the yard. "Well, at least you're looking pissed off and not smug like that time when the two of you pretended to use the loo at the Yard and snuck a snog instead," he scoffs. "Your game face sucks when it comes to him," he chuckles at Sherlock, cocking his head towards John.

"Oh, _shut up,_ George," Sherlock huffs and reads John's amusement in the shape of his shoulders.

Lestrade smiles, shakes his head and focuses on the afternoon traffic. Thankfully, no one comments on Sherlock's silence as they meander their way to the outskirts of south London.

  
-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-  
  


Sherlock focuses on the case folder for the rest of the journey, not even glancing up when his peripheral vision picks up clues of them entering the hospital grounds. He steels himself, forces his brain to stick to the path of fact and science, pretends to be a bloodhound on the scent, imagines himself an automaton with a singular purpose, instead of allowing even the normal amount of data about his surroundings to seep in.

John has kept Lestrade engaged with small talk – it must be a welcome opportunity for such communication, since Sherlock is rarely willing to engage in such frivolities.

They park in a designated area on a cul-de-sac road off River Way that connects the eastern parts of the grounds to the western side. The walled garden is only a few minutes' walk from the car park, and it looks mostly as Sherlock had remembered. The three neat compost bins near the gate had been there in 2007, but the pond had been an overgrown maze of reeds and grasses with tall shrubs between it and the wall. According to the crime scene officer, it was when the gardener had begun to clear the space between the pond and the fence that he had come across the remains of the old compost heap and, subsequently, the body.

In 2007, Sherlock had not gone into that area even though he'd visited the garden many times. The walled vegetable patch had been one of the only spots in the hospital grounds where nothing reminded him of his predicament. Mycroft, during their conversation here, had only been mildly interested in the garden itself; he’d walked about the neat paths, idly trailing behind Sherlock instead of exploring. He probably prioritised not getting grass stains on his trousers or mud on his brogues over having a proper look around.

Sadness twists a knot inside his ribcage, carves a hollow for itself within his chest as he stands by the old sundial in the middle of the garden. Things he had said to Mycroft here had not all been out of malice – he had been executing a plan he had devised, aware of its cruel nature. He still can't think that a more effective approach would have made Big Brother take a step back, to stop meddling, to stop _caring_. Not that he ever did – as proven by their reunion months and months later. Sherlock had only contacted him after he'd found what he was looking for and what he couldn't have discovered if he'd still been living under someone else's thumb: a life of his own making.

There had been a time earlier in his sectioning when he had truly wanted to hurt his brother in the worst manner possible, but the impulse had waned once he regained his grasp of reality. Instead of the fury of his early days at Bethlem, the wounds he had inflicted on the day when he'd stood here with Mycroft had been calculated, calm and deliberate. He had managed to play his part so well that Mycroft had taken him at face value, stopped in his tracks: banished, bewildered and vilified. That conversation had done what it needed to do— broken old patterns and redefined the two of them forever, but it had also broken them apart. Being aware and accepting that risk back then had not lessened the impact as much as Sherlock would have hoped.

And, it is not just what happened with Mycroft that is why Sherlock still carries this place within him. He had genuinely believed for a very frightening month or two that he might have to spend the rest of his days here. Returning here for any possible reason has never crossed his mind.

 _Needs must._  The case demands his presence. As London grows, green areas are overtaken by urban development. It's no wonder serial killers are running out of secluded body dump sites and unpopulated routes to reach those spots. Perhaps they should unionise. 

Sherlock squares his shoulders, pulls out his pocket magnifier and gets to work.

  
-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-  
  


“Tell me about the pile, before the idiots mucked about with it.” This is aimed at Sally Donovan, who has been at the scene for hours. They are standing next to the brick wall, looking down at the place where the body had been found. Sherlock has now done his own reconnaissance of the rest of the garden and listened to John hem and haw about decomposition rates; they'll have to ask Molly for a more professional assessment later and he ought to prompt John to read up on this stuff.

She frowns. “Only a bit was sticking out, the rest was buried quite deep, so Technical spent a couple of hours moving the dirt before the body could be photographed. You know how slow they usually are. According to the gardener, the heap isn’t really compost, more like a wildlife pile. Nowadays they compost properly all the stuff they can in those bins.”  She points to three wooden bins with slatted sides. “It’s just the big stuff – big branches and weeds that won’t really compost at all – that they chuck back there against the wall. Well, maybe not anymore, since they're clearing this space, which they began to do because the pile has been making the brickwork of the wall damp and crumbly.” 

“Where is this gardener?” Sherlock is hoping that it won’t be the same man who ran this plot back in 2007; it would be very embarrassing to be recognised even if the risk for that is quite low. He had visited at least a dozen times, but it's been a _decade_.

“He was in a right state when we got here, but we managed to get a statement out of him. The hospital HR manager insisted that he should go home. I’ve got his details if you absolutely have to talk to him. You’re not suggesting he’s a suspect?”

Sherlock shakes his head, relieved that the risk of meeting someone from 2007 has just dropped significantly.

There turns out to be disappointingly little to be gleaned from the body, no obvious signs of a lethal injury. The possible link to the current case is evident – missing fingers – but only two of them have been cut off from the right hand. Sherlock asks the local Forensic team to take additional samples from the soil in the heap, and in various places in the garden. When the body is examined by the pathologist, Sherlock will want to know whether the victim could have been killed elsewhere but then abandoned here shortly, or if it was deposited in the pile some considerable time later. The finger excision being incomplete could point to the killer being interrupted, which could also have led to a hasty selection of a dumping site.

“The placement here may not be symbolically relevant. We can’t be sure the body was here for a significant period of time until the soil is analysed. We’ll need a proper post mortem, but I’d estimate that this one has been buried for at least four to six years, so this may well be our killer’s first victim. No chance of recovering fingerprints when the flesh is this far gone. Even with several of the ten fingers intact, it won’t be easy to track down identity. Bone marrow DNA will be out best bet.” He takes some pleasure in rattling off these deductions and comments at his usual speed. No indication of his simmering inner turmoil escapes.

The body is so badly decomposed that it practically disintegrates as it is manoeuvred into a body bag. Sherlock asks John to look at the left hand very carefully before the bag is zipped shut.

“The two fingers were definitely amputated; I can’t be sure until I can see under better magnification, but it looks like there is bone healing – so, cut off well _before_ death in this case. Modus operandi can be developed and refined so this could be our suspect's first performance, but two fingers _might_ also have been lost in an accident.”

Lestrade looks at him expectantly, but Sherlock is loath to speculate further. He shrugs. “Perhaps significant, but maybe not. Unclear at this stage.”

“Weird place to dump a body. Who would know about the spot, except a patient or someone who works here?”

Sherlock wonders if saying what's on his mind might betray a special knowledge, but the needs of the case prevail: “This area is accessible to the public – to the staff and to patients _and_ their visitors. It’s not under surveillance. Anyone could park next to the structure briefly. There's a lock on the door into the walled area, but it could easily be overcome with bolt cutters, and we already know that's what he'd likely used to get to the second victim. The lock would not be difficult to pick, either.” He should know; he’d done it himself twice, when he’d been seeking a place to have a quiet smoke out of sight.

There is a fingertip search of the garden going on; the local constables are eager to get involved, making Lestrade smile. “Not many murders down here in leafy suburbia, but I kind of doubt that they are going to find a syringe.”

"The killer may not even have been using an injectable drug initially to overcome the victims," John points out, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. "He might have taken that up later."

Sherlock is no longer paying attention to the two men. “I need to think.” 

He turns away from the wall, and both Lestrade and John follow him into the small office near the entrance. The hospital gardener uses it to sell produce to visitors when the space isn’t being used by therapy groups. Apart from a couple of carrier bags of broad beans, pots of jam and stalks of rhubarb tied up and lying on the large table, nothing out of place is evident; tools are stored neatly, the bags of compost, seeds and other garden paraphernalia are much the same as when Sherlock was here last. He has no reason to believe the killer had entered the building but right now, he could use the privacy.

Lestrade glances around the room and then his gaze falls on Sherlock. “Okay, what is it that you’re not saying?”

That makes John wince, and Sherlock gives him a tiny warning shake of the head before turning back to face the DI. “Nothing. You could make yourself or Sergeant Donovan useful by obtaining a list of former patients and their close family members from about six to eight years ago; not many people would know about the garden without a personal connection to Bethlem. The forensic unit here has records in the criminal justice system so start there, but the hospital won't disclose the information easily about the others.”

Lestrade nods. “What about a staff member? Maybe covering up something that went wrong?”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Whatever misconceptions you might have about the staff in psychiatric hospitals, they are not stupid enough to ignore a patient or visitor going missing. A former employee would also have to be a moron to do the idiotically risky thing of dumping a victim on the grounds of their old workplace.”

Lestrade rubs the right side of his forehead, a badly slept night evident on his face. “Well, since the killer could have been a patient here, it wouldn't hurt to get a list of staff who’ve been here long enough, up to around the time of the victim’s death. They might be able to provide the names of potential suspects among former patients.”

Sherlock shakes his head. "Not going to work."

The silence lengthens as Lestrade waits for him to explain. He scrambles for an excuse, an explanation, _something_ to keep from Lestrade from digging too deep in _any_ of the older records. He curses himself for suggesting the thing in the first place.

Finally, he manages to spit out: “No. Confidentiality will mean medical staff here won’t talk about any particular patient, especially since anything they say about the danger someone might pose would be conjecture. You can’t go on a fishing expedition; there will have to be probable cause and a warrant with a name on it to get access to actual, specific patient files, even if you managed to get some staff member to speculate. You’d better go yourself; your sergeant will lack the subtlety to even obtain a list. They’d have the right to refuse so you need to ask politely. Don’t ask me to do it.”

Having said his piece, Sherlock strides out of the office because he is annoyed with himself. He needs to come up with something that will prevent the need to make a survey of patient records – if they end up having to dig further than the past few years, his name might come up on such a list. He balks at the almost casual assumption that the mental health of the patients here meant that their rights to privacy could be trampled on without due cause.

To avoid the constables crawling their way through the veg beds, he ends up walking into the area of the garden with polytunnels housing carefully tended tomato plants. John seems to have sensed his need for a timeout and doesn’t follow. He ducks into a small greenhouse, forces himself to go through all the Latin names of the plants that he can possibly remember and recognise, then just breathes in the smell of earth and cut grass for a moment, eyes closed.

When he emerges, he is calmer again and goes to join John who is standing in the centre of the garden amidst the lush herb bushes. Lestrade is nowhere to be seen, so presumably he has gone to the Administrative block to see about the patient and staff lists.

“Makes me hungry.” John is crushing some leaves that he had plucked and holding them to his nose. Sherlock can soon make out a lovely scent of lemon thyme in the air. The corpse has been hauled away in its body bag a moment ago, so the fragrant herb is starting to replace the stench of decomposition. 

The scent brings back a memory: he recalls the first time he’d been allowed out without a minder. He had come here and relished the fact that the only odours in the air were freshly cut grass, damp earth and growing things. The contrast between it and the scents of the men's ward at Fitzmary House – old and worn and marinated in humanity – was a welcome relief.

John peers down at the old sundial between knee-high bushes of rosemary and lavender.

Sherlock clasps his hands behind his back, squinting in the bright sunlight. None of the constables are within earshot. "' _Hora Quasi Umbra'_."

"What?" John looks up and at him.

"It's what is says on the dial: _'Time is but a shadow_ '."

"Right," John acknowledges in a tentative tone. He’s looking at Sherlock cautiously.

Sherlock does not evade his scrutiny. He is giving John permission to ask, if he needs to. To ask if he ever came here. To ask if this particular spot meant anything to him.

John says nothing.

Sherlock isn't relieved, because the notion of talking to John about it all feels much less intimidating than he had thought. He finds himself surprised at his own current calmness and his ability to focus. Being back has made him realise that it isn't the garden that holds all the worst memories – it is just a flimsy association. To be precise, the worst part of his conversation with Mycroft had happened on the gravel path between the garden and Fitzmary House which can be seen across a vast lawn that opens behind the garden. Sherlock has avoided even looking in the direction of the building, even though very little of it as is even visible from here or the car park. When they had first arrived, he didn't want to give John a reason to ask about any of it. Now that he knows that he can do this, he might care less. He might actually answer, if John asked something.

He can do all this, because he's most certainly not the person who was dragged here in 2007 kicking and screaming. He's not the lonely creature incarcerated here for months and months. He's not the person who told his brother that he never wanted to see him again. He hasn't been that person for a long time. It had been an irrational fear that coming back would hurtle him back into that time and state of mind.

He's now the world’s only consulting detective, and capable of having a loving relationship with someone. He's also a friend to more than one person. But, he hasn't achieved all that on his own. A great deal of credit goes to the man standing nearby, scraping moss off a sundial.

And, although it stings, Sherlock is forced to admit that part of that credit may also belong to what had happened in this very place. The crucible of 2007 had forged a part of his personality, just as every significant experience before and after it. For a long time, he hadn't forgiven others for enforcing help on him, but he does believe John when he had assured Sherlock that there may not have been any options – not legal nor moral – other than the sectioning, if the goal was to preserve his life.

The realisation strikes him in the solar plexus: he has just admitted to himself that not everything about Bethlem had been bad, harmful, demeaning or detrimental. Why is he thinking like that, now? Why would he want to stop vilifying this place? Hate is too mild a word for his dislike of his time here but in some ways, it is too extreme and simplistic a term to summarise his experiences.

He glances at John, who has walked on to pluck a pea pod from a nearby wigwam of canes and is now contentedly munching on its contents. He must've picked up on the fact that Sherlock is not about to run for the hills or have a breakdown. These days, after years of partnership, their moods are connected, attuned to each other – have been so ever since the GBS. There had been a time during his recovery from it when he had spent months wrapped up in his own grief and trying to push John away, because he didn't know what to do with the love he'd been given. Still, John had never given up on him, never hesitated or flinched, no matter what skeletons of Sherlock's were dragged out of the proverbial closet.

Though he feels admirably serene, Sherlock does yearn for a cigarette, even though he hasn't smoked in years – not after he'd met John and the man had convinced him to quit. The craving will never disappear, and he misses the calming effect. Then again, if coming here had felt worse, he'd be craving for something stronger.

He pretends to do research on his phone while the forensics team wraps up their work. He only looks up when Sally Donovan walks up to him after speaking to the medical examiner who is taking the body away. Sherlock decides that he’s seen what he needs to see and tells her that he and John will make their own way back into town. It'll likely be easier to catch one of the commuter trains heading into London than looking for a taxi; Bromley is south of the river and far enough to be serviced by rail services and not the underground, making it unaffected by the tube strike. He is _not_ sitting in a police car twice in a day.

"What do you want me to say to Lestrade?" she asks.

"I’ll see him after the post mortem.” Sherlock nods pointedly to John and the two of them leave the garden.  
  


-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

  
Soon, he and John are walking along a stone path along the back of the main building. Sherlock halts next to a large yew tree at the corner and checks his watch. It's still office hours.

An odd idea had begun brewing in his head as soon as they'd left the vegetable garden behind. It's the sort of thing he never does, and likely a bad idea altogether if he wants to play it safe regarding his own reactions to this place. Still, he’s made it this far so the compulsion does exist, and it's getting stronger every time he glances at John walking beside him.

As usual, John is following his lead in that silently supportive manner of his, never more than three steps behind. Despite looking harmless and relaxed, the steel in his gaze and the way he surveys his surroundings betrays a fierce protectiveness brewing underneath. This place must bring it out intensely. Instead of condescending, Sherlock finds it comforting. It gives him courage to consider whether he should be audacious and to go with his idea. Will he ever get the opportunity to do so again?

He slows his steps as they pass a sign pointing to the left to a swimming pool building, and right to Gresham House. The main building looms ahead in the midst of a copse. Sherlock had only been there for his therapy sessions and the farcical Tribunal. Nowadays, the main building mostly houses administrative spaces and the Bethlem Museum of The Mind.

"Are you alright?" John asks, because he's John.

Sherlock stops and looks across the driveway towards the back of Gresham House. He rarely answers those sorts of question, but he likes John’s acknowledgement that something must currently be challenging and frustrating him. His empathy saves Sherlock the trouble of having to try to express such an embarrassing thing out loud on his own accord. John is not only his conductor of light, but the weathervane of his emotions.

It might surprise the man when he finds out why Sherlock is hesitating right now. He's not anxious or impatient to get out of here – he's trying to make a decision. Years ago, faced with this situation, he would have been highly defensive, fervently protecting the secrets which he once feared would be the breaking point of their relationship. He would have fled this place as fast as his legs would carry.

It's just that again and again, John has been the cause of astonishment in his ability to understand important things about Sherlock. Somehow, he makes many things feel much less intimidating.

Perhaps Sherlock could, for once, offer something freely instead of John having to pry. He nods towards Gresham House as they start walking again, heading through an intersection in the path. "I spent two weeks there."

John discreetly studies the signs leading to the building before hastening his steps to catch up with his partner. "Intake ward?" he deduces.

Sherlock nods. "From there, I was moved to Fitzmary House at the end of this path."

John looks over his shoulder towards the red brick structure Sherlock has just mentioned. "Which way is the main road?" He is referring to Monks Orchard road, from which they'd turned to the premises.

"We have to go around the main building," Sherlock replies.

Soon, he'll leave this place behind for the second and hopefully the final time. He should feel relieved and triumphant, but instead, he feels oddly disappointed, as though he'd been expecting a greater challenge and met with a hurdle he had crossed childishly easily. As huge a part as this location played in his past, today’s visit has been as anticlimactic as seeing his old room at the ITU had been. The visit years ago, when they'd managed to get to the room itself, had actually proven much tougher on John than him.

Maybe it's stubbornness, maybe it's hubris, but he wants to take this further, and not just because he wants to relish the feeling of triumphantly strutting around this place as a free man.

There is a certain thing he wants to tell a certain someone, and he has been putting it off for years.

Save from John, there has been only one person who has had an unwavering faith in his abilities to get on with his life independently and on his own terms. That person had not been the sharpest pencil in the box and his approach to Sherlock and his problems had been cookie-cutter at best, condescending at worst, but he had introduced one particular truth to his reluctant patient: _'We don't get to choose our family, but we can choose the people we accept and want in our lives'._

This person had made Sherlock believe that since he hadn't met every single person on this planet yet, there might be someone who wouldn't walk away from him. The man had planted a seed that had made even Sherlock believe that he had a fighting chance not to have to spend his entire life alone – that it wouldn't be better to just end it all. Without this particular person, he would never have realised that other people would be such a deciding factor in having some hope that the rest of his life might be not only bearable, but even enjoyable. Without those lessons learned, would he have dismissed John outright, pushed him away, perhaps never even sought a flatmate in the first place? Would he have believed that anything could come out of their conversation in a hospital winter garden when he took the greatest leap of faith in his life and told John in no uncertain terms that he wanted their relationship to change into a romantic one?

_'There might well be someone who is not perfect, either, and who's going to see your faults and show you their own and think that it's all just a life thoroughly lived and not something that makes you a persona non grata.'_

Derek Smathers was a bit of an idiot, but he had been _right_.

Yes, Sherlock decides. He _is_ going to be audacious today. He needs to be quick about it, though, and not give himself the opportunity to bail out.

Instead of a brisk walk towards the exit, Sherlock cuts a corner and heads right towards the front entrance of the main building, John breaking into a jog after him.  
  


  
-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-0-o-

 

Some things never change. The therapist's office is still where it had been in 2007, but thankfully getting there no longer requires ringing buzzers or walking through wards. This time, Sherlock isn't escorted there by a wardrobe-sized orderly after being blackmailed into doing something he hates under the pretence that cooperation would earn him brownie points towards freedom.

The door is slightly ajar, and a quick glance at his watch tells Sherlock that there are likely ten minutes before the therapist's next scheduled appointment. The timing is apt, offering Sherlock a quick excuse to leave if this proves fruitless or unbearably awkward.

He doesn't allow himself to examine his motives any further. _Sometimes, needs must. Closure_. _Turning the last page and shutting a book_.

The job of a therapist must be a thankless one, especially in a place such as Bethlem Royal, where it often takes weeks and even months for the patients to become well enough to be able to cooperate with talk therapy. It must be as thankless a task as that of a violin instructor who elects to help those teetering at the brink of despair over the loss of their abilities due to illness or injury and are thus lashing out in frustration against those attempting to help them. It must also be as thankless as the work of an ITU nurse caring for a silent but completely coherent patient; to be forced to bear witness and cushion the reactions of loved ones to the plight of their friend or their brother or the flatmate of a consulting detective. It must almost be as thankless as the duty of a brother who ends up smothering the sibling he's trying to help.

Yet, it won't come close to the herculean burden of an army doctor trying to keep their loved one from falling into pieces over and over and over again.

Sherlock has never taken for granted the people in his life who are willing to put up with him. After the GBS, he values those people even more than before. He had assumed a false stability in certain relations in the past and not given acknowledgement to people who had been there for him, and that is a wrong he intends to put right, starting now.

Derek Smathers had been his ally when Mycroft had been his greatest enemy – or at least he had believed so at the time. The therapist had barely kept up with his intellect, but the man had done his very best and it turned out to be enough. His efforts had not been appreciated by the Sherlock of 2007, but the older and hopefully wiser man of 2017 knows better. Even if Smathers may have just been doing his job, he had not let Sherlock's hostility and resistance discourage him. The therapist had done well because, like Sherlock, he seems to enjoy his profession immensely. That is certainly worthy of celebration.

Sherlock knocks, and a familiar voice made slightly raspier by age replies with a distracted "yes?"

John glances up at him but says nothing. This isn't new: Sherlock making intuitive leaps or leading John to some location, the connection of which to an ongoing case only becoming apparent later. John very likely thinks this is still about the serial killer.

In a way, it is. There wouldn't _be_ cases, if Sherlock hadn't walked out of Bethlem Royal in better shape than he'd been in when he had been banished here. There wouldn't be cases, if he hadn't been encouraged to find his own way instead of submitting to being nannied by his brother. Granted, his taking off on his own, stopping his medications and at least temporarily going back on the drugs had certainly not been what Smathers had intended, but Sherlock had pulled himself out of all that against all of Mycroft's prophecies that he couldn't cope on his own. He had found reasons to do so, better reasons than the ones Mycroft had tried to force him to adopt.

He accepts that some of what had transpired at Bethlem had been necessary. Most of the medications he would never credit with helping him get better, but some of them _may_ have assisted in regaining his grasp of reality even if the side effects had been devastating. One thing he will never feel gratitude for, however, is the absolutely vile psychiatrist who'd been in charge of his case. There had been a stark contrast between Dr Benjamin Barnes and Smathers. Even Mycroft had detested the former, and Smathers had actually sided with him against Barnes.

The man who Sherlock now sees before him as he pushes open the door is the only completely benign thing he remembers about Bethlem. Not that his relationship with Smathers had been easy: he had fought tooth and nail against any attempt to reorganise his head or to question his thinking. Then again, isn't that precisely what psychotherapists are trained to be able to handle? A bit of grey has crept into the man's hair. He is wearing his old wedding ring, so it seems that the troubled marriage has been salvaged, after all. No more dogs. Perhaps not getting a new pet to replace the old one had been the needed compromise to harmonise the union. Sherlock can spot tell-tale tan lines; a new golf hobby?

"I'm sorry, but I have an appointment in five. Are you sure you're not looking for---" Smathers says as he types the last key strokes of a sentence on his laptop, eyes still fixed on the screen. He soon trails off, because he probably senses that something is amiss here.

"I am quite sure I'm exactly where I intended," Sherlock replies.

The therapist blinks. Then, recognition seems set in. People don't tend to forget Sherlock once they've met him, but the recollections created are rarely positive.

Smathers, however, looks both surprised _and_ delighted.

This encourages John to step properly into the room as well and to take his usual position beside Sherlock, their forearms gently touching. The connection is… reassuring.

"Well, this is a surprise. Sherlock?" Smathers asks politely, in a tone so confident that it's must be only out of social convention that he's confirming the name of his visitor. "Sherlock Holmes?"

From the corner of his eye, Sherlock sees John's posture change slightly. He must've made some sort of a deduction based on the fact that the man has just used Sherlock's first name.

Smathers wastes no time in rising from his chair, and offering his hand. Usually Sherlock doesn't indulge in handshakes, but now he finds himself oddly willing to make this concession. When it comes to pointless social conventions, Smathers had managed to make him jump through some very unlikely hoops – shaking hands is hardly comparable to the worst of them. Mycroft had nagged at him for years on the benefits of politeness and conformity, but it had been Smathers who had made him really consider whether there could be a happy medium between being rude as a statement of his independence and the other extreme of trying too hard to conform and overdoing everything as a result. Sherlock may have acted in a manner unlike himself and even overdone it with that ridiculous wink when he'd met John, but at least the man hadn't run for the hills. Sometimes, going through the trouble of pretending that such behaviour comes easily to Sherlock is worth the result. If it made John happy, he'd have tea with the queen twice a day and chitchat about the weather. Then again, John seems to love the _real_ Sherlock, not the housetrained version.

"I hope you're not here on official business; I've been following up on the press what they write about you.” As the handshake ends, Smathers smiles. “I see that you did find that…um, career you were seeking back then." He glances curiously at John who is looking at Sherlock, waiting to be introduced. "I was hoping you might, pretty sure you would. I'm glad I was right."

“This is Doctor John Watson. John, meet Derek Smathers, my psychotherapist in 2007,” Sherlock announces and shifts to the side slightly so that John can step forward.

The army doctor looks a bit shell-shocked, and it takes a moment before he seems to realise he's expected to shake the hand Smathers has extended. He would probably not have assumed Sherlock would ever be willing to make such an introduction – to openly share such a part of his past.

“I’m an avid reader of your blog. Good to see that he’s made a name for himself for all the right reasons,” Smathers offers sunnily and John replies with a tight-lipped, polite smile.

"Like I said, none of the usual employment options were a very good fit when I left," Sherlock concedes. "But I did finally find a way for the police to take me seriously. I assume you've heard about what was found in the garden?"

The smile fades, and Smathers sighs. "Hmm – well, you both will know how fast rumours circulate in a hospital. I heard that the gardener found human remains. Are you taking the case?”

“Yes. Anything that comes to mind that could be of use?”

Smathers leans back to sit on the edge of his desk. "There is a forensic secure unit here, so all sorts of criminals have passed through during the last decades. Those patients get to go on escorted walks, so they might have figured out that it was a good place to leave a body. But how on earth could a particular individual be identified who might think of it? It doesn’t even have to be a criminal; any of the many hundreds of patients who’ve been here since your time might have come to the same conclusion. There will be nothing in the files that would suggest someone would do something like that, so none of the hospital staff can probably help. Must be like trying to find a needle in a haystack."

 _Bloody ordinary people and their pessimistic haystacks._ "It’s my job to narrow the list of suspects down when forensics and the collective intellect of the police will inevitably fall short. I will succeed this time, I am sure. I doubt our culprit is all _that_ clever."

John raises his brows but says nothing. Sherlock's statement about his abilities may have sounded hyperbolic, but John of all people should know it's true.

Sherlock suddenly finds himself hoping that Smathers won't mention the first case he'd ever tried to solve. The psychiatrist had latched onto that like a remora once he'd got wind of it and admittedly, it may have affected Sherlock's thinking around that time. John doesn't know about any of that, and Sherlock doubts he'll ever find the context or the right words to share the story. They've had plenty of upsetting cases together and there will be more in the future. John doesn't need the burden of shared knowledge about an old, devastating one.

Then again, Sherlock had made a promise. No more lies, not even those of omission, and no more hiding. It's frustrating how difficult it is to gauge what and when he should share what goes on in his head.

"If what's in your head is upsetting you, I want to know about it. If it's making you react to me in some way that's causing problems, I desperately want to know about it," John had told him a few years after GBS when they'd been having a lie-in at a hotel in Southampton and Sherlock had been thinking out loud about the difficulty of disclosure in relationships.

He pushes that aside to focus on the case at hand. “It might help narrow things down if you could remember any patient about six to eight years back who had the last two fingers of his left hand amputated or traumatically lost before he got here.”

Shock registers on the therapist’s face. “Why?” It comes out quietly. The man deals with the darker sides of humanity on a daily basis, but it seems that the notion of physical gore disturbs him. Or, more likely, he has blanched because he _does_ remember something important.

“Because that is a distinctive feature of the body we found. Those missing fingers may well be linked to the more recent deaths that have been in the papers.”

Smathers' eyes go wide. “ _The Finger Phantom_.”  He looks pained at having to use that awful tabloid nickname.

Sherlock shares his disapproval. “Indeed. I have a hypothesis, but confirming it requires you to tell me the circumstances of the person you're remembering, since it's blatantly obvious my mention of the fingers has jogged _something_ in your memory. You do recall such an individual, then?”

Smathers nods. “Not one of mine, I hasten to add. Robert Soames was a patient here in 2011; came in after his second suicide attempt. He’d been in an accident as a child, I think, and lost his fingers. Doctor Eileen Johnston was the Case Manager, I think – I remember that because she only worked here briefly when the old chief had resigned and we needed a temporary replacement.” He takes a moment to think, to remember. “Yes, it’s coming back now. Soames was here for about seven weeks, but absconded. Police bulletins went out, but he was never found. I must remember this so well, because the family sued the South London and Maudsley Trust for negligence, but the court found that the hospital had shown due diligence.”

Sherlock nods. “Thank you. You may have helped save a lot of police time – and ours.”

There is a knock at the side of the open door behind them, and a middle-aged man warily pops his head into the room. His eyes open wide at the sight.

“Terry; it’s alright. Your appointment should start now, but can you give me just a few more minutes? These gentlemen are just leaving.” Smathers’ voice is calming and welcoming.

The man disappears and quietly closes the door after himself.

Sherlock turns to go, but stops when Smathers clears his throat. "How is your brother? Do you see each other?"

Sherlock grits his teeth. "He's fine; I saw him not two weeks ago." There had been a drive-by nagging about Mummy's upcoming birthday.

Sherlock decides that having come this far, he might as well complete the story. "Mycroft is one thing you were right about, at least in some respects," he tells Smathers. He draws a deep breath before continuing: “and, there’s _more_.”

The therapist's eyebrows rise expectantly.

Sherlock pointedly laces his fingers into those right beside him. John looks at their joined hands, confused, and then shifts his gaze up to Sherlock, his expression a silent question mark.

Sherlock decides he doesn't really owe an explanation to John right now, because this is between him and Smathers. It's a reply to a question the therapist had kept raising in countless iterations in 2007: _'what if_?'

What if there is someone who could love you?

What if you will meet them one day?

Why not take that chance?

He had forced Sherlock to consider erring on the side of caution and not leaving this mortal coil until he has exhausted all his options, of which there are six billion on this Earth.

 _'We can choose_.' Sherlock had done exactly that, and he had chosen _well_.

Smathers nods. He has clearly understood Sherlock's meaning without a verbal explanation.

"We shan't keep you any longer," Sherlock prompts and pointedly looks at the wall clock. After a brief squeeze, he releases his grip on John's fingers.

"Right, right, yes," Smathers says and stands up from where he’s been leaning against the desk. "It was very good to see you."

Sherlock had not expected for this to feel downright good or all that liberating, but there is a certain sense of graduation. This confirms that he isn't the person he was in 2007.

He's a consulting detective. He's his own person, not struggling under roles forced upon him.

He belongs to someone; he's _John's_ , because John chose him.

Sherlock is already out the door, impatient for his blogger-turned-significant-other to follow. "Come on, we haven't got all day. Serial killers don't catch themselves!"

He heads for the stairs, hearing John's hasty and sheepish farewell to Smathers. Familiar footsteps then begin hurrying after him.

John doesn't catch up until at the downstairs foyer, where Sherlock briefly lingers between two large stone statues that used to adorn the main gates of the hospital. They are called _Raving Madness_ and _Melancholy Madness_. He sniffs, hiding half a smirk from John. Had he been those things once? According to John, he probably still is, at least when he's on what John has dubbed his major sulks.

' _My nutter'_ , John sometimes calls him. He would probably have refrained originally if he'd known about Bethlem, but it has never been anything but an endearment. It's not the worst thing Sherlock has been called – not by far. He has never wanted to be ordinary. Sanity is relative.

John inspects the statues after noticing that Sherlock's eyes had been drawn to them. When their gazes lock, John is doing that strange thing that combines a frown with a triumphant grin and is hard to interpret even after all these years.

"Did you just _show me off_ to your bloody therapist?" John asks, snorting to further emphasize his point.

"Nonsense," Sherlock announces. "Come along." He holds the door open for the both of them, then determinedly heads towards the entrance gates. “We need to go rescue Lestrade from mounds of paperwork. All he needs is a warrant for Soames’ records. I am quite certain that he committed suicide here, in the garden. The subsequent murders have happened on the last two anniversaries of his date of absconding. The one who planted the new bodies at the hospitals is likely to be an aggrieved family member who thinks that the NHS is responsible for Soames’ death and that they were left unpunished.”

“You’ve solved it.” John laughs, shakes his head and takes his place by Sherlock's side.

   


**_– The End –_ **

 

 

 


End file.
